Maintaining Motivation to Train

Training Tuesday

I'm struggling.

I know what I need to train. I know what my dogs need to either maintain their proficiency or evolve in their skills. I'm struggling with the motivation to even get the dogs out of their kennels. (Don't worry, they are getting to run 2-3 miles several times a week, get outside time and all sorts of other bones, they are fine...)

This is about how I (or we) maintain motivation to train/teach and work our dogs. It seems like a never ending task with all sorts of nuances, requirements and never ending training logs....

I've started going back to a tried and true mantra for myself.

Make sure the dog has fun.

This is the constant piece of advice I give to handlers who have testing nerves. This is the one thing I can rely on to make sure I keep my head in the game, even while I am testing.

I resorted to some pretty drastic measures. A little retail therapy associated with dog toys. I ordered a full box of toys from Chewy that I know Dash loves. (They are GoDog Furballz in a couple of different sizes.)

Seeing his joy as we play with these toys brings me joy. It inspires me to find ways to provide him with training so that he gets a chance to interact with these toys. This allows me to then break out little tiny things we can work on.

Bring the toy to me.

Hold on to it until I ask you to let it go.

Sit in front of me and stay.

Sit in front of me and stay while holding this awesome toy.

Wouldn't you know, I may have just trained a very nice finish...

And we have a great time while doing it.

Have I done all of this yet? No.

But the plan is there.

The joy is there.

Right now, that is the most important thing.

For me.

How do you maintain the motivation to train?